Art and remoulade

Friday night, we attended an opening reception for Pix2 at UT-Dallas. John Pomara, who teaches there, invited art critics in the DFW Metroplex to select one artist each for inclusion in the show. I chose Josie Durkin, the new sculptor at my university. Her work is wonderful. Here's what I wrote about her for the show's brochure:

"I became a fan of Josephine Durkin’s work when I first saw it a couple of years ago. Formally inventive and courageously beautiful (you have to be brave to make things so ravishing), her work is also informed by a web of human/social associations. Consider those rocking chairs: They’re made from laser-cut and folded digital photographs (patent pending – really). Chairs conform to our bodies to one degree or another. Their contours and proportions reflect the articulation of our bones. So it’s not a stretch to read Josie’s arrangement in social terms with the chairs metonymically standing in for a crowd of people, an audience for the (blowhard?) fan before them. Little fans of a big fan, they rock and nod agreement to the asymmetrical power relationship implied by the work’s relative proportions and by the unilateral transmission of energy. I’ve been in that situation, and I’ll bet you have, too."

It's great to see Josie getting some local attention. Of course, inclusion in a university gallery group show isn't as significant as her solo show up in Wichita's Ulrich Museum. I plan to head up there to check it out in March.

After the opening, we drove to Big Shucks for dinner. A dozen oysters on the half shell, some ceviche, cole slaw, and really good fried calamari, which came with (mirabile dictu!) remoulade, also very good.